Lightroom develop module

Lightroom's develop module is the part of the programme where most of it's users spend the majority of their time. This is very understandable as it's the heart of the raw processing and where most adjustments to images are made.

When you're in the develop module (shortcut d on your keyboard), you have panels on the right (press f8 if it's disappeared) starting with the histogram and the toolbar (crop tool, spot removal, redeye correction, gradient tool and the adjustment brush). Beneath this are the panels proper: Basic, Tone Curve, HSL / Color / B & W, Split Toning, Detail, Lens Corrections, Effects and Camera Calibration.

Out of these, the panels I use most in order are: Basic, Detail, Tone Curve, HSL, Effects, Split Toning, Camera Calibration and lastly Lens Corrections.

That's just my own way of working and if you have a lens which gives you funky distortions that you want some assistance in getting rid of, the Lens Corrections might actually be much more use to you than it is to me. I don't own anything that distorts really badly and if I'm shooting wide, I tend to keep important things away from the edges of my 24-105. This means I really don't have that much use for this module. You may, of course, be totally different. And it's really good to know that there's variety in the world!

I'll make a post or two on the different panels and how I use them; starting with the basic panel which is the one I think most of us should have ready for every image even if we have got everything right about it - something I don't achieve very often!

I'll leave you with an image which required only the tiniest bit of tweaking in the develop module; it got a small adjustment to exposure as I was 2/3 stop out on my exposure. His Mum loves the image and has given me permission to use it for marketing material.

All the best